Tag Archives: Bullying & Hazing

The Villain Edit by Alisha Aitken-Radburn

When former government staffer Alisha Aitken-Radburn was given a ‘villain edit’ on her first season of The Bachelor, she wasn’t entirely surprised-after all, there are only a handful of character tropes producers can manipulate into storylines. But the backlash on social media was unexpectedly intense, and Alisha found her sense of identity completely rocked by a single ‘You are a bad person’. Determined to shake the ‘villain’ label, she returned to reality TV screens, and this time, she got a different edit. She was met with praise and empathy, and her portrayal led to a third and final season, where she met the man she… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Infidelity
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Bullying & cyberbullying

Saving Sunshine by Saadia Faruqi and Shazleen Khan

It’s hard enough being a kid without being teased for a funny sounding name or wearing a hijab. It’s even harder when you’re constantly fighting your sibling—and Zara and Zeeshan really can’t stand each other. During a family trip to Florida, when the bickering, shoving, and insults reach new heights of chaos, their parents sentence them to the worst possible fate—each other’s company! But when the twins find an ailing turtle, it presents a rare opportunity for teamwork—if the two can put their differences aside at last.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Islamophobic bullying

Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao

Pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child, Lady Jing is half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole. As the King’s ward, she has spent the past ninety years running errands, dodging the taunts of the spiteful hulijing courtiers, and trying to control her explosive temper – with varying levels of success. So when Jing overhears the courtiers plotting to steal a priceless dragon pearl from the King, she seizes her chance to expose them, once and for all. With the help of a gentle mortal tasked with setting up the Central Bank of Hell, Jing embarks on a wild chase for intel, first through Hell and then mortal Shanghai… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Child abuse
  • Panic attacks
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Bullying

Louder Than Hunger by John Schu

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Smoking (secondary character)
  • Anorexia, depression & Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
  • Bullying

Finally Heard by Kelly Yang

When ten-year-old Lina Gao sees her mom’s video on social media take off, she’s captivated by the potential to be seen and heard! Maybe online she can finally find the confidence she craves. Whereas in real life she’s growing so fast, she feels like microwave popcorn, bursting out of her skin! .With the help of her two best friends, Carla and Finn, and her little sister, Millie, Lina sets off to go viral. Except there’s a lot more to social media than Lina ever imagined, 1. Seeing inside her classmates’ lives! Is she really the only person on the planet who doesn’t have a walk-in closet? 2. Group chats! Disappearing videos! Will anyone.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anxiety & disordered eating
  • Minor cyberbullying

Second Sister by Chan Ho-Kei

Nga-Yee, a librarian, lives a quiet life with her fifteen-year-old sister Siu-Man. After a difficult, impoverished upbringing and the deaths of their parents, they are finally finding a bit of stability. Then one day, Nga-Yee comes home to find her teenage sister has jumped to her death. Was it suicide, or was she pushed? And does it have anything to do with a recent trip on the Hong Kong subway which left Siu-Man silent and withdrawn? Nga-Yee cannot rest until she knows the truth about her sister – even if that means tracking down her sister’s friends one by one and making them confess.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sex slavery
  • Paedophilia
  • Sexual assault
  • Suicide
  • Self harm
  • Bullying & cyberharassment

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. And for just a short while, these new beginnings… Read more,

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Transphobia & deadnaming
  • Physical & emotional domestic violence
  • Child abuse
  • Self-harm
  • Attempted suicide discussed
  • Abortion
  • Murder of a trans woman (theme)
  • Physical assault
  • Drunk driving car accident
  • Police brutality
  • Bullying

Hex and the City by Kate Johnson

Things you should know about Poppy: 1. She’s a witch, 2. She has magical hair like Rapunzel from Tangled, 3. She lives with Iris, the head of her coven, in a beautiful, ramshackle house next to Highgate cemetery, 4. She works at Hubble Bubble, a magic shop in Covent Garden. Though none of it is real magic as that would be highly irresponsible. Until… Poppy accidentally sells gorgeous celebrity magician Axl Storm, all six-foot-four of him, a cursed pendant. When all hell breaks loose can the guy with fake magic and the girl with real magic fix the chaos they’ve caused? Or will sparks fly both in and out of the cauldron?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Eating disorder & disordered eating (calorie counting)
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Bullying mentioned

Anne of West Philly by Ivy Noelle Weir and illustrated by Myisha Haynes

When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert decide to foster a teenage girl for the first time, their lives are changed forever. Their redheaded foster daughter, Anne Shirley, is in search of an exciting life and has decided that West Philly is where she’s going to find it. Armed with a big personality and unstoppable creativity, Anne takes her new home by storm as she joins the robotics club, makes new friends in Diana and Gilbert, experiences first love, and turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. But as Anne starts to get comfortable, she discovers one thing she wasn’t looking for: a family.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexism discussed
  • Experiences in & trauma from the foster care system discussed
  • Hospitalisation for a medical emergency
  • Bullying

Aru Shah and the Song of Death by Roshani Chokshi

Aru is only just getting the hang of this whole Pandava thing when the Otherworld goes into full panic mode. The god of love’s bow and arrow have gone missing, and the thief isn’t playing Cupid. Instead, they’re turning people into heartless fighting-machine zombies. If that weren’t bad enough, somehow Aru gets framed as the thief. If she doesn’t find the arrow by the next full moon, she’ll be kicked out of the Otherworld. For good. But, for better or worse, she won’t be going it alone. Along with her soul-sister, Mini, Aru will team up with Brynne, an ultra-strong girl who knows more than she lets on, and Aiden, the boy who lives across the street… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Alcohol consumption mentioned
  • Emesis
  • Physical assault
  • Fire
  • Animal attack
  • Bullying